Here’s a PSA from the Dublin Airport: Don’t call it St. Patty’s Day. Also, March 17 should never be referred to as Patty’s Day either.

You may, however, call it St. Paddy’s Day, or Paddy’s Day. Also acceptable are the traditional St. Patrick’s Day and Patrick’s Day.

Got that?

In a fogra (notice, in Gaelic) posted to its Facebook page, the airport addressed what is apparently a pet peeve: the improper use of St. Patty’s Day in the United States and Canada.

“Please share this simple message with your friends and relations in the United States and Canada,” the fogra reads. “Using the power of your network, hopefully we can banish the scourge of St Patty once and for all.”

So what’s the problem with St. Patty’s Day?

Patty is a nickname for Patricia, a woman’s name, according to the website paddynotpatty.com. St. Patrick was, of course, a man.

Paddy is appropriate because it comes from Padraig, a variant of the name Patrick.

But if you really want to impress an Irishman, you need only say: Lá Fhéile Pádraig Sona Daoibh (Happy St. Patrick’s Day!).

Like many another in impossible circumstances, he began to pray. He had never before paid attention to the teachings of his religion; he tells us that he didn’t really believe in God, and he found priests foolish. But now, there was no one to turn to but the God of his parents. One is reminded of the reports of contemporary hostages about how they make it through the dreary years of captivity. “Tending flocks was my daily work, and I would pray constantly during the daylight hours. The love of God and the fear of him surrounded me more and more—and faith grew and the Spirit was roused, so that in one day I would say as many as a hundred prayers and after dark nearly as many again, even while I remained in the woods or on the mountain. I would wake and pray before daybreak—through snow, frost, rain—nor was there any sluggishness in me (such as I experience nowadays) because then the Spirit within me was ardent.”

Patricius endured six years of this woeful isolation, and by the end of it he had grown from a careless boy to something he would surely never otherwise have become—a holy man, indeed a visionary for whom there was no longer any rigid separation between this world and the next. On his last night as Miliucc’s slave, he received in sleep his first otherworldly experience. A mysterious voice said to him: “Your hungers are rewarded: you are going home.” Patricius sat up, startled. The voice continued: “Look, your ship is ready.”

“They understood, as few have understood before or since, how fleeting life is and how pointless to try to hold on to things or people. They pursued the wondrous deed, the heroic gesture…poetry for intense emotion, the music that accompanied the heroic drinking with which each day ended, bewitching ornament for one’s person and possessions.”

2014 NCAA bracket: Use Slate’s interactive to make your picks based on the odds, SAT scores, coach’s salary, and a whole lot more. I may try dog lovers. According to the interactive, Connecticut wins. And then again, Wofford has a dog mascot, a terrier, and they got the SoCon’s automatic bid. So maybe not.

Want to pick an NCAA bracket but have no idea where to start? No worries—use our interactive March Madness bracket-filler. We can pick the winners based on who’s the odds-on favorite, or we can serve up a bracket full of underdogs. Want to go with whoever has a dog mascot, or a cat, or a bird? We can help. What about picking by SAT scores? We’ve got you covered. The first-round games start on Tuesday, but most bracket contests give you until Thursday morning to submit your picks. Now, get to clicking!

No. 7 seed @DavidsonMBB will play at No. 2 seed Missouri on Tuesday on @ESPN2 in the 1st round of the NIT Tournament

Pat’s Backcountry Beverages Covet | OutsideOnline.com: I neither drink beer nor camp … so that is just interesting to me. So I guess the question, “After all, who among us hasn’t fantasized about some sweet suds at the end of a long, hot hike? ” doesn’t apply to me.

We’ve written about Pat’s Backcountry Beverages Carbonator, the Nalgene-size system for fizzifying your drink of choice where ever the trail takes you. And while we’ve talked about Pat’s alcohol-packed beer flavors—the world’s first beer concentrate, according to the company—we haven’t put them to the test. Until now.

As a backpacker and a booze writer, when I heard about Pat’s first two beer flavors (complete with alcohol!) I couldn’t resist checking them out. After all, who among us hasn’t fantasized about some sweet suds at the end of a long, hot hike? But could these “beers” pass the taste test of an admittedly picky beer drinker? The short answer—Yes.

For those unfamiliar with the idea, Pat’s Backcountry Beverages Carbonator is a plastic bottle with built-in levers, valves, and cups. You add a mixture of potassium bicarbonate and citric acid to the small charging cup within the bottle, pull a lever on the cap a few times to add water, and a chemical reaction starts, releasing CO2 into your beverage of choice. In this case, your beverage of choice would be beer.

Pat’s offers two flavors: Pale Rail and Black Hops. They both come in portable, 1.7-ounce liquid packets that you add to the water before you charge it. These packets are sold in four-packs for $10 a pop, which isn’t too outrageous compared to your standard micro-brew.

It’s worth noting that these aren’t merely “beer flavored.” Founder Pat Tatera developed what he calls a “Hybrid Brewing Process.” The beer begins as a normal beer would, except once it’s done fermenting, he vacuum-distills it. This pulls out most of the water and the alcohol, which Tatera sets aside, leaving a beer-like syrup. Then he restarts the brewing process, but instead of using water to create the wort, he uses the beer syrup. He repeats these steps four times, then soaks Cascade Hops in the reserved alcohol to extract their flavor, and combines that with the syrup. The result? A little packet of concentrated beer. Just add fizzy water.

I went through the process exactly as I would if I were in the field, using cold, bottled water to simulate filtered water from a stream. Despite Pat’s claim that it’s just three steps, there are several steps within each step, and you’d be hard-pressed to remember them all if you didn’t bring the instructions. It takes approximately five minutes to brew each beer. Here’s how they measure up to the real thing.

100 Diagrams That Changed the World (UK; public library) by investigative journalist and documentarian Scott Christianson chronicles the history of our evolving understanding of the world through humanity’s most groundbreaking sketches, illustrations, and drawings, ranging from cave paintings to The Rosetta Stone to Moses Harris’s color wheel to Tim Berners-Lee’s flowchart for a “mesh” information management system, the original blueprint for the world wide web.

But most noteworthy of all is the way in which these diagrams bespeak an essential part of culture — the awareness that everything builds on what came before, that creativity is combinatorial, and that the most radical innovations harness the cross-pollination of disciplines. Christianson writes in the introduction:

It appears that no great diagram is solely authored by its creator. Most of those described here were the culmination of centuries of accumulated knowledge. Most arose from collaboration (and oftentimes in competition) with others. Each was a product and a reflection of its unique cultural, historical and political environment. Each represented specific preoccupations, interests, and stake holders.

Truth is not always that which the majority believes it to be; it is often disguised as myths found in the popular trends of social normality, myths that a girl like Elizabeth Bennet is able to debunk. Elizabeth is, in essence, a modern woman well before her time. She is able to see past the delicacies and deceits of corseted ball gowns, budding romances, and pretentious suitors, all of which make the young women around her swoon with anticipation.

The simplicities of the female lifestyle do not satisfy Elizabeth’s longing for a life of purpose and meaning for the mere reason that she, unlike her sisters, is unwilling to exchange her desire for truth with a fleeting happiness inspired by a gentleman’s passing fancies. She refuses to take the hand of a man for whom she feels anything but wholehearted love, and instead she chooses to sleep soundly with a well-deserved pride in her nonconformity.

RIP, Howard “Bo” Callaway, ‘Superstar’ of Republican party, http://www.ajc.com, kith/kin: RIP Bo Calloway: I will never forget him. We got a dog in 1966 and named him Bo for Bo Calloway. That is my first memory of an election. I was 6. He lived until 1981 and I was 21. It was a good name for a dog.

In the 1960s, when nearly every elected Georgia Republican could fit in a Studabaker, Howard “Bo” Callaway was the party’s driver.

By 2010, when the GOP swept every statewide office for the first time, Callaway’s name was spoken with reverence, as the father of the Georgia Republican Party and its first superstar.

Callaway, 86, who helped his parents create the Callaway Gardens resort near Pine Mountain, died Saturday, nearly two years after suffering a cerebral hemorrhage.

His death marks the end of an era that saw him become, in 1964, the state’s first Republican congressman since Reconstruction, and almost the first Republican governor two years later. And while he never returned to elected office, veteran Georgia Republicans say he never stopped working to grow the party.

Artists like Monet and van Gogh saw the world in a way that was once rejected as crazy. But their work came to be prized in every meaning of that word. This Monet masterpiece is called “Parliament in London,” part of the priceless collection at the Musée d’Orsay in Paris.

You may not be a visual artist. But if you’re one of those “crazy” people who sees hopeful possibilities in a world that others claim is going to hell in a handbasket, don’t let the cynics do eye surgery on you!

You won’t become as famous as Monet, but you’ll achieve something equally important. You’ll open other people’s eyes to the daily opportunities we all have to help make this world a more life-giving place for all concerned.

Happy Birthday, Davidson! Today is the perfect day to make your gift to Davidson. You only turn 177 once, after all. – http://bit.ly/1kD4AjY

Flexibility, Lenten Devotions:

Sunday March 16, 2014

The Virtue of Flexibility

Flexibility is a great virtue. When we cling to our own positions and are not willing to let our hearts be moved back and forth a little by the ideas or actions of others, we may easily be broken. Being like wild reeds does not mean being wishy-washy. It means moving a little with the winds of the time while remaining solidly anchored in the ground. A humorless, intense, opinionated rigidity about current issues might cause these issues to break our spirits and make us bitter people. Let’s be flexible while being deeply rooted.

Green Renaissance, Panchita (a Galapagos sea lion) : Panchita, now pregnant and expecting her baby sea lion, goes out to sea every day and then returns to the hotel to rest. … as good as a good dog story!

March 13

This is Panchita, a Galapagos sea lion. Panchita was caught up in a net, which left deep cuts all over her body. She managed to make it to this hotel where animal advocates nursed her back to health for 3 months.

Panchita, now pregnant and expecting her baby sea lion any day, goes out to sea every day and then returns to the hotel to rest.

Chartres Cathedral, Easter Dances by the clergy, Holy Innocents’ Episcopal Church | The Second Sunday in Lent (March 16): Just loved this devotional post. And now I must research Chartres Cathedral Easter Dances by the clergy!

Martha Sterne on Mar 16, 2014 9:13am

Sundays are “Feast and Fill in Your Own Quote” days on our Lenten Journey. What comes to you through this image? This I just learned – the labyrinth in Chartres Cathedral, created in the early thirteenth century, was the scene of Easter Dances by the clergy! Photo is by an anonymous internet pilgrim.

Many students see little noteworthy overlap between course offerings in computer science and in the traditional humanities. However, a new generation of digitally savvy liberal arts scholars believes that technology is changing our understanding of the humanities.

In a growing field known today as the “digital humanities,” professors and students engage in a computer-based study of the liberal arts.

In light of the growing popularity of the field, Stanford University approved two new “joint-majors” on March 6 that will allow students to pursue an interdisciplinary study of English and computer science or music and computer science beginning next academic year, according to a press release by the university.

Unlike double majoring in computer science and a humanities field, students who choose the new CS+X program will not be required to complete all the requirements from both majors, according to the university.

Students will pursue a curriculum integrating coursework from both disciplines and will need to complete a senior project or honors thesis that synthesizes their work from both fields.

The ‘singing’ stones of Stonehenge, Bath Chronicle, favorites, thin places: Love this place and the ancient-ness of it. Now Ifind out it sings! My sis and I visited when I was 18, and we hunted for her boyfriend’s initials which he supposedly had carved in a stone as a teen. You could walk all around the stones way back when …

It has long been a mystery to even the most learned expert of the Stonehenge monument – what is so special about the stone in west Wales that it was worth carting 180 miles to Salisbury Plain?

Most theories concentrated on how the famous bluestones of the Preseli hills in Pembrokeshire can be buffed up to a strikingly polished shine. But now experts in the arts, rather than archaeology, have come up with a different theory – and it is not to do with how they look, but how the sound.

Researchers from the Royal College of Art in London spent months taking one lump of stone and tapping it on more than 1,000 rocks in the Carn Menyn area of the Preseli hills, and discovered something so remarkable it may well rewrite the history books about Stonehenge.

The bluestones ‘sing’ when they are hit, resonating with an apparently unique twang that does not appear to reach the same pitch or musical note as other stones which merely ‘thud’.

Some previous theories surrounding Stonehenge’s sonic qualities – the way the stone circle would have captured and reverberated sound – had been rather dismissed by the experts concentrating on astronomy and landscape, but the new study appears to reinforce the importance of sound, and the sonic qualities of the stones themselves.

“We found it was a noteworthy soundscape, with a significant percentage of the actual rocks making metallic sounds like bells, gongs, tin drums, etc, when tapped with small, handheld ‘hammerstones’,” said Paul Devereux, the study’s co-leader, a research associate at the college and an expert in archaeo-acoustics.

It is a phenomenon anyone sitting inside the stone circle during the summer solstice celebrations each year amid the cacophony of a dozen or so drummers can attest to.

“The stones may have been thought to have magical, qualities, mana, because of their exceptional sonic nature,” he added.

Following a successful campaign on Indiegogo which raised nearly $26,000, artist Sipho Mabona followed through on his promise to fold a life-sized elephant from a single giant sheet of paper. The piece stands over 10 feet tall (3 meters) and took a team of nearly a dozen people over four weeks to fold. The final sculpture is on view at KKLB in Beromünster, Switzerland. Photos by Philipp Schmidli. (via My Modern Met)

Delaware man’s self-penned obit takes internet by storm, abc11.com, Walter George Bruhl Jr.: I love a good obit! I “will do an unexpected and unsolicited act of kindness for some poor unfortunate soul in his name.”

Walter George Bruhl Jr. of Newark and Dewey Beach is a dead person; he is no more; he is bereft of life; he is deceased; he has rung down the curtain and gone to join the choir invisible; he has expired and gone to meet his maker.

He drifted off this mortal coil Sunday, March 9, 2014, in Punta Gorda, Fla. His spirit was released from his worn-out shell of a body and is now exploring the universe.

…

Everyone who remembers him is asked to celebrate Walt’s life in their own way; raising a glass of their favorite drink in his memory would be quite appropriate.

Instead of flowers, Walt would hope that you will do an unexpected and unsolicited act of kindness for some poor unfortunate soul in his name.

“It turns out that cohabitation doesn’t cause divorce and probably never did,” says Kuperberg. “What leads to divorce is when people move in with someone – with or without a marriage license – before they have the maturity and experience to choose compatible partners and to conduct themselves in ways that can sustain a long-term relationship.”

So what’s the magic age? Kuperberg says it’s unwise to either move in or get married before the age of 23. But other family experts say that’s lowballing it. Economist Evelyn Lehrer (University of Illinois-Chicago) says the longer people wait past 23, the more likely a marriage is to stick. In fact, Lehrer’s analysis of longitudinal data shows that for every year a woman waits to get married, right up until her early 30s, she reduces her chances of divorce. It’s possible that woman may also be reducing her chances of marriage, but Lehrer’s research suggests later marriages, while less conventional, may be more robust.

MH370: Can this be possible? This is from a few days ago. this story keeps getting more and more unbelievable. Sounds like a Clancy thriller.

U.S. investigators suspect that Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 stayed in the air for about four hours past the time it reached its last confirmed location, raising the possibility that the plane could have flown on for hundreds of additional miles under conditions that remain murky. http://on.wsj.com/1fsKDV5

Malaysian officials say they have no data indicating flight MH370 flew on for hours after last contact as reported by the WSJ. http://on.wsj.com/1kmANcz

So the 18-month-old pup did what she thought was best: She laid on the horn for 15 minutes.

“I came out of the gallery and looked down the street about a hundred yards away and saw a crowd gathered around a car and heard a honking sound,” Graham said, according to the Daily Star. “Then I did a double-take and realized that it was my car and I wondered if it was anything to do with the dog. She was sitting in there casually honking the horn.”

Several onlookers snapped photos and took video of the scene.

“I heard it and thought it was an impatient driver,” one video commenter wrote.

The Express reports that Fern’s anger didn’t subside when she saw Haddow returning.

“Usually when Fern sees me she stands up and gets excited with her tail wagging,” Haddow said. “But this time she just gave me a sideways glance and kept on honking the horn.”

The Harvard Classics, Download All 51 Volumes as Free eBooks, Open Culture:

Rather than simply curating for posterity “the best that has been thought and said” (in the words of Matthew Arnold), Eliot meant his anthology as a “portable university”—a pragmatic set of tools, to be sure, and also, of course, a product. He suggested that the full set of texts might be divided into a set of six courses on such conservative themes as “The History of Civilization” and “Religion and Philosophy,” and yet, writes Kirsch, “in a more profound sense, the lesson taught by the Harvard Classics is ‘Progress.’” “Eliot’s [1910] introduction expresses complete faith in the ‘intermittent and irregular progress from barbarism to civilization.’”

…

Over a hundred years, and several cultural-evolutionary steps later, and anyone with an internet connection can read all of the 51-volume set online. In a previous post, Dan Colman summarized the number of ways to get your hands on Charles W. Eliot’s anthology:

You can still buy an old set off of eBay for $399 [now $299.99]. But, just as easily, you can head to the Internet Archive and Project Gutenberg, which have centralized links to every text included in The Harvard Classics (Wealth of Nations, Origin of Species, Plutarch’s Lives, the list goes on below). Please note that the previous two links won’t give you access to the actual annotated Harvard Classics texts edited by Eliot himself. But if you want just that, you can always click here and get digital scans of the true Harvard Classics.

In addition to these options, Bartleby has digital texts of the entire collection of what they call “the most comprehensive and well-researched anthology of all time.” But wait, there’s more! Much more, in fact, since Eliot and his assistant William A. Neilson compiled an additional twenty volumes called the “Shelf of Fiction.” Read those twenty volumes—at fifteen minutes a day—starting with Henry Fielding and ending with Norwegian novelist Alexander Kielland at Bartleby.

What may strike modern readers of Eliot’s collection are precisely the “blind spots in Victorian notions of culture and progress” that it represents. For example, those three harbingers of doom for Victorian certitude—Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud—are nowhere to be seen. Omissions like this are quite telling, but, as Kirsch writes, we might not look at Eliot’s achievement as a relic of a naively optimistic age, but rather as “an inspiring testimony to his faith in the possibility of democratic education without the loss of high standards.” This was, and still remains, a noble ideal, if one that—like the utopian dreams of the Victorians—can sometimes seem frustratingly unattainable (or culturally imperialist). But the widespread availability of free online humanities certainly brings us closer than Eliot’s time could ever come.

Samel was described as a passionate outdoorsman but also someone who had lived a troubled life. Late Sunday night, Samel was involved in a police chase after he was reported for drunk driving. Following a sustained pursuit, police units ultimately surrounded Samel as he sped toward an officer approaching on foot. The officer and another trooper opened fire on the pickup, killing Samel and injuring the other male passenger.

Samel had been under court orders to not drink after a DUI arrest in September, when he picked up two hitchhikers before crashing into a roadside ditch. Sunday night marked the end of a nearly 30-year criminal history for Samel.

In 1992, Samel was with a group of three moose hunters when they found McCandless almost three weeks after he died. According to Jon Krakauer, when the hunters arrived at the old Fairbanks city bus, a couple from Anchorage were already there but stayed back because of the stench and unsettling SOS note. It was Samel who eventually discovered McCandless in his sleeping bag.

The Spring Break College Tour, A Survival Guide, WSJ.com: Been there, done that.

March Madness is upon us, by which I mean the tradition of taking your high school junior on a manic tour of college campuses. I’ve done it twice now, so I feel that I have some perspective on how to survive it.

As the parent, you have much to offer on this exciting and emotional journey—paying for it and doing the driving. But this limited influence does give you leeway to help design the trip, and here is where you can begin your subtle campaign of influencing where your kid goes to college. Keep your designs sub rosa, because the minute you say, “I’d love to see you at UMass Amherst,” she’ll set her heart on Sarah Lawrence. That one little sentence can cost you $40,000.

You’re only going to have a week or so on the tour, so you’ll have to pick your schools carefully. Most likely your kid will have already assembled a wish list of colleges to see. Don’t feel hurt if those places are far away from you—that is only because she wants to be really far away from you.

Cats in the Cradle-ing, Modern Family: Just thought this an interesting pop culture reference.

Back on the course, it’s down to the final hole, and Mitchell needs to sink a putt to win the match. Phil likes what Jay has done for him, given that his own father was often too supportive. (PHIL: He even set up my tumbling equipment and wanted to be the loudest voice in the crowd. “Hey everybody! Check out my son’s equipment!”) Jay wishes Mitchell good luck and says he’s proud of him no matter what, but Pepper puts a stop to that. Jay’s Cats in the Cradle-ing him, trying to get Mitch to lose his angry edge. Pepper did the same thing to his Navy SEAL son but not to worry, Mitchell drops that putt in the bottom of the cup. Jay congratulates him and Mitchell believes him when Jay says that he wasn’t Cats in the Cradle-ing him. Jay hates the song, natch, but Phil’s never even heard it so Pepper plays it for them, and the waterworks start. Mitch admits he ought to have golfed with Jay sooner, and Jay admits that he never made the time, and Phil’s so upset about not going to Luke’s play, he skips golfing with his client and runs to the school.

breast cancer awareness month, October 2013: In years past I have enjoyed the competition of individuals, communities and businesses to raise awareness for breast cancer research. For some reason, this year was not as interesting … but I got a good chuckle out of this one.

In honor of breast cancer awareness month…mammo grahams.

international geocaching day: A while back it was international geocaching day …

Coming soon to a city near you? Yarn Bombing has seen a steady rise in popularity and has been referred to by knitters and police as the polite graffiti. Knitters take their colourful craft out onto the street and cover iconic and ordinary urban objects with multicoloured fuzz. The trend, known by some as guerrilla knitting aims to brighten up and subvert the everyday in urban environments. Here\’s a few of our favourites:

The nonprofit\’s display is the latest iteration of the craft trend that\’s been coloring city streets for about a decade; Yarn bombing, the act of crocheting and knitting unexpected pieces for public display. Leanne Prain, author of Yarn Bombing who may have coined the term, says \”bombing\” is a word often used in street art to describe \”something explosive you do really fast,\” like \”spraypaint subway cars\” and now, cover public property in knitting. Hurry and take an iPhone picture, because the pops of woven color go up quickly and have limited life-spans.

From the group behind Mortimer’s and Leroy Fox, Cowbell has an energetic vibe, and it’s riddled with pop-culture references. Portraits of rock icons including Robert Plant and Jimmy Page, all by local artists, decorate the walls, along with a rotating collection of vinyl, neon lights, song lyrics, and two flat-screen TVs that play an ever-changing selection of music videos. But the dining area doesn’t feel cheesy or theatrical—instead, it’s swanky and sleek, with dark leather seating and reclaimed wood tables. A large wraparound bar with a striking double herringbone pattern offers additional seating at the back of the restaurant, but the best seat in the house is the large booth right in front, nicknamed the “mob booth,” offering great views of the dining room and the street.

Only fair that Obamacare enrollees have to deal with the same bureaucratic red tape + incompetence as everyone else with private insurance.

baby naming:

Baby naming generally follows a consistent cycle: A name springs up in some region of the U.S.—”Ashley” in the South, “Emily” in the Northeast—sweeps over the country, and falls out of favor nearly as quickly. The big exception to these baby booms and busts is “Jennifer”, which absolutely dominates America for a decade-and-a-half. If youre named Jennifer and you were born between 1970 and 1984, dont worry! Im sure you have a totally cool, unique middle name.

really dumb: David Hall and Glenn Taylor, the two men responsible for toppling a rock formation in Goblin Valley, have been removed from their position as Boy Scout leaders on the Utah National Parks Council. The Council called the actions “reprehensible” and said they violated the Scouting principle of leave no trace.

Do you think they deserved to lose their positions or have things gone too far in response to the toppling incident?

What is mulch? Mulch is a layer of material added to the top of the soil surface in garden beds which is most often pine straw, hardwood mulch, pine bark mulch and cedar, but sometimes stone, pebbles or marble chips are also used.

There are many benefits that mulch provides your garden beds. It is essential to your garden in cooler months because it prevents cold damage by keeping the ground warmer. Year round mulch helps to hold moisture in the ground around your plants and slows down the evaporation rate. Mulch also helps to keep weeds under control.

As mulch breaks down it also add rich organic matter to your garden. Refresh your mulch a couple of times a year. Always keep a layer that is about 1.5 to 2 inches deep.

As I ran along the river, I passed numerous people and greeted them. But on the way back I went by a young woman near tears sitting on a bench obviously in the sifter. I felt this nudging to stop and ask her if she was okay, but sprinted on. Then it struck me, the back of my shirt had Fitness, Fellowship and FAITH written on it, as I just turned my back on her in order to keep my min/mile split at a decent pace.

Okay, a bit more explanation is necessary. Michael Chwe is an associate professor of political science at UCLA whose research centers on game theory and, as he puts it, “its applications to social movements and macroeconomics and violence — and this latest thing is about its applications maybe to literature.”

The literature in question? The novels of Jane Austen. Chwe discovered that Austen’s novels are full of strategic thinking, decision analysis, and other tools that would later come to be prized by game theorists like those as the RAND Corporation just after World War II. (They included some of the brightest minds of the time, including Kenneth J. Arrow, Lloyd S. Shapley, Thomas Schelling, and John Nash.) And so Chwe wrote a book called Jane Austen, Game Theorist.

The Wilmette Park District’s $1.3 million paddle tennis project has shifted into high gear, with a June 29 groundbreaking at West Park, and the hiring of a head platform tennis professional to manage programs and lessons at the four-court complex.

District Director Steve Wilson said last week that Brad Smith, who spent the last decade as racquet director for the Onwentsia Club in Lake Forest, will be responsible for creating new programs, events and lessons in Wilmette.

The first episode of this season was fast-paced and interesting. This first half of this new episode dragged and the second half featured one too many speeches, (Lisa, Don, Charlie, Will, Mackenzie) although Will’s mini breakdown at the police precinct was interesting to watch. This episode differs from all the episodes last season because it doesn’t cover one day or one news event; it covers a span of a few weeks and focuses on Troy Davis and Occupy Wall Street.

fitbit, fitness data, OutsideOnline.com: Since I made less than a week with my first fitbit …

If what you’re looking for is an overall health boost, the current wave of wristband trackers—Fitbit Flex, Jawbone UP, and Nike+ FuelBand—will give you a baseline measure of how much physical activity you’re getting each day. Unlike the cheap pedometers of yore, these devices are powered by robust accelerometers that detect motion in three dimensions. But their biggest advance is in usability: they’re small enough to wear 24 hours a day, and they sync effortlessly with smartphone apps. More important, they provide a simple tally—Nike calls it a Fuel-Score—so users need to compare only a single data point from day to day. “People like to see how they’re progressing,” says Trent Stellingwerff, a physiologist at the Canadian Sports Institute Pacific. That desire alone is enough to get you active.

If you’re more motivated by competition, look for something that quantifies your effort rather than just your distance. Under Armour’s new chest-strap-mounted Armour39 tracker combines heart-rate data with motion sensors to calculate a real-time “willpower” score. “Our vision was a single number that tells you how hard you’re working, no matter what the sport is,” says Christy Hedgpeth, Under Armour’s head of digital sports. Nike’s FuelBand and Adidas’s MiCoach offer similar cross-sport scoring systems, letting you track your fitness output across activities. They also allow you to compare scores and compete with friends and worldwide leaderboards, basically making a game of working out.

But it’s a third category, which aims to help you maximize your training—telling you when to push hard and when to slow down—that represents the boldest leap yet. “This is the holy grail, but it’s also a black hole,” says Shona Halson, who heads the performance-recovery division at the Australian Institute of Sport. Over the years, scientists have struggled to pin down the physiological indicators of overtraining, like heart-rate variability (the fluctuations in the time between heartbeats) and stress-related hormones like cortisol.

For coaches, two of the more trusted indicators of overtraining are mood and sleep cycle—and naturally, there are apps for those. With Moodscope, which keeps daily tabs on your emotions, you use a virtual deck of cards to rate feelings like alertness and nervousness. A sustained downward trend is a sign that you should probably back off. For sleep, there are a handful of top-end trackers that detect various stages, like REM and deep sleep, but Halson uses a simple wristband accelerometer to measure sleep time in her athletes. She’ll watch for patterns of disruption and suggest tweaks in bedtime habits, caffeine consumption, and training.

KITCHEN AID Artisan mixer, selfridges.com, artisan, conspicuous consumption: I saw this in a Selfridges advertisement and it just jumped out at me. It’s lovely, but artisan and copper … just scream conspicuous consumption. i wouldn’t mind one on my counter, but still …

KitchenAid® 5-Quart Artisan™ Custom Metallic Stand Mixer

This attractively styled stand mixer is reason enough for you to get busy in the kitchen. Lasting durability is ensured by using a five step custom plating process on the metallic finish. With a powerful 325 watt motor, it can handle any task you put to it. The tilt-back head allows for easy access to whatever you’re mixing and the 5-quart bowl features an ergonomic handle for comfort. The durable, all-metal construction is built to last. The unique mixing action reaches every part of the bowl. Five rubber feet protect countertop, while helping to stabilize the mixer. 10-speed control. Includes: flat beater, dough hook, wire whip, pouring shield and 5-quart, polished stainless steel bowl. UL listed. Hassle-free replacement warranty within the first year from purchase. Model # KSM152PS.

Fancy getting creative in the kitchen? KitchenAid’s Artisan stand mixer, now in a beautiful satin copper finish, has a large capacity to make mixing in batches a breeze, as well as a tilt up head design to ensure easy cleaning and usage. The combination of high quality craftmanship and good looks will make food prep a pleasure.

tenner,victory, equality campaigners, Jane Austen, £10 note, Home News – UK – The Independent: JANE BEAT OUT CHURCHILL! But it was only after some civilized protest!

The decision is a swift victory for equality campaigners who launched a protest just three months ago after the bank declared it would be replacing social reformer Elizabeth Fry – the only female historical figure on a banknote – with Winston Churchill.

In a second victory, the bank will also review the process it uses to select historical figures for banknotes in the future – a decision likely to be influenced by the threat of legal action by campaigners. Solicitors wrote to the bank in May threatening court action for its failure to consider equality laws in the way it decided which historical figures appeared on a note.

More than 35,000 people signed a petition complaining that replacing Fry with Churchill on the £5 note would wipe women from Britain’s history. The petition was handed into the Bank of England earlier this month.

Jane Austen, £10 banknotes, Business | guardian.co.uk: What a nice thought … However, ” [h]istorical figures were first introduced on British banknotes in 1970, since when there have been only two women: Fry and Florence Nightingale. The others have all been men, from William Shakespeare and Charles Dickens to composer Sir Edward Elgar and scientist Michael Faraday.”

King provoked a storm of protest when he announced that the only woman to appear on an English banknote other than the Queen – the prison reformer Elizabeth Fry – would be replaced by Winston Churchill in 2015. Campaigners have threatened to take the Bank to court for discrimination under the 2010 Equality Act.

Historical figures were first introduced on British banknotes in 1970, since when there have been only two women: Fry and Florence Nightingale. The others have all been men, from William Shakespeare and Charles Dickens to composer Sir Edward Elgar and scientist Michael Faraday.

Caroline Criado-Perez, who is organising the legal action against the Bank, said she would not be “placated” by King’s remarks. “He is still talking in conditionals and I am afraid that is just not good enough. It is not good enough in terms of the demands of the campaign and it is also not good enough according to the Equality Act … which, as we have been saying all along, is about needing to know that the decision-making process is fair and equitable.”

Last week a group of 46 Labour MPs and peers, including former ministers Harriet Harman, Yvette Cooper and Labour leader of the Lords Baroness Royall, called on the Bank to review its decision to drop Fry. “The fact that Florence Nightingale is the only other woman who has ever been represented alongside Elizabeth Fry also suggests there is a need for the Bank to show stronger leadership in honouring the role of women in our nation’s history,” they wrote in a letter to the Bank’s board of directors, which was copied to Prime Minister David Cameron.

More than 29,000 people, have signed a petition to keep women on English banknotes, damning Fry’s relegation as “yet another example of how the establishment undervalues the contributions of women to history”.

…

“Nobody has put money to better uses in their novels than her,” Mullan said. “There are plenty of novelists who think that money is important and make you aware of that when you are reading, but she makes her characters aware of it, which is a rather more brilliant thing.

For the Bennet sisters, life in quiet Hertfordshire County is about to change. Netherfield Hall has just been let to a single man of large fortune. But while it is true that such a man is generally considered to be in want of a wife, it is equally true that not all men desire female companionship, just as not every woman dreams of being married.

Like other variations on Jane Austen’s classic romance novel, Gay Pride & Prejudice poses a question: What if some among Austen’s characters preferred the company of their own sex? In this queer revision of the classic original, Kate Christie offers an alternate version of love, friendship, and marriage for Elizabeth Bennet, Mr. Darcy, and others among their circle of friends. But even as the path to love veers from the straight and narrow, the destination remains much the same.

If you have an open mind, dear reader, you may discover the book Jane Austen would likely never have approved, but which, nonetheless, affords a window onto gay and lesbian life in early nineteenth century England.